While Earthdwellers cast their eyes to Mars this week and waited for news from NASA's Curiosity, lots of action took place closer to home, where the commercial space market has seen progress from every direction. We've rounded up a short summary of what happened back on the home planet.

Chasing dreams

Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spacecraft team held its Program Implementation Plan Review in Colorado this week, the first milestone in its CCiCap list. CCiCap is phase 3 of NASA's Commercial Crew vehicle development program, intended to foster commercial rides to the International Space Station for NASA astronauts. Passing that first milestone was worth $30M to Sierra Nevada. It advances the company toward the first drop test and free flight of the Dream Chaser Engineering Test Article, a version of the craft specifically built for testing, in November.

According to NASA's Dream Chaser Technical Manager Cheryl McPhillips, Sierra Nevada has two safety review milestones coming as part of its CCiCap program, then an integrated system baseline review, then ultimately a critical design review toward the end of the program. Sierra Nevada also has optional milestones, but they were redacted in the information released thus far.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden has said that the program set out for Sierra Nevada, as a winner of a partial funding allocation in this phase of Commercial Crew, attempts to retire all of Dream Chaser's technical risk. Presumably that strategy will make it much easier later on for the company to quickly complete the vehicle and use it to bid on crew transportation to and from the International Space Station.

Returning to orbit

SpaceX completed its COTS (Commercial Orbital Transport Services) agreement this week with a certification from NASA, clearing the way for SPX-1, its first standard cargo flight to the International Space Station (the earlier flight was a test loaded with non-critical supplies). SpaceX Cargo Resupply Services flights, at $133M, will cost far less than deliveries launched by Russia, Japan, or the European Space Agency.

The next flight has been bumped into early October by another rocket launch, and won't be sent off before October 8 at 8:12pm. Wet dress rehearsals (loading up the rocket with propellants on the stand and staging countdowns) should begin within the next week.

Beyond the mandatory food and clean underwear, SPX-1 will carry 15 experiments for NASA's Student Spaceflights Experiment Program. The SSEP formerly offered students in grades 5-14 an opportunity to fly an experiment aboard the Space Shuttle, but it has since shifted to the International Space Station.

Aiming for Antares

Orbital Sciences was also slated to fly its Antares rocket for the first time in early October, but there's no word yet on whether the traffic jam that's holding up SpaceX will bump them again. Antares is Orbital's COTS vehicle and a competitor of SpaceX's Falcon. It has been delayed several times due to launchpad construction at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia. If all goes well, Antares will carry a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to orbit on its second flight, in a few months, in a test very similar to the one performed by the SpaceX Dragon earlier in the year, when it rendezvoused with the International Space Station.

The Antares rocket has been waiting patiently since last month in its processing facility at MARS. Orbital chose MARS partially to avoid range issues at Kennedy Space Center in Florida—if there are conflicts with the SpaceX flight from Kennedy, it would only be due to a shortage of NASA personnel to help manage both flights. This sort of personnel shortage shouldn't be a major issue for the next few years, but it might be more of a problem in the future. ISS is beginning to look like it will stay in orbit until at least 2028, and more space stations are on the way, so there may be a busy launch schedule at both ranges in the future.

Short of orbit

XCOR Aerospace announced this week that it will build a new spacecraft factory in Brevard County, Florida, to build its Lynx 2-person suborbital spacecraft. Lynx takes off and lands horizontally and requires a runway, which in Florida means the Shuttle's landing strip at Kennedy Space Center.

The factory may soak up some aerospace workers laid off when the Shuttle was retired. XCOR hopes to hire as many as 150 people by 2018, depending on what sort of traffic it gets for its $95,000 suborbital spaceflights. XCOR is also hoping to move into orbital flights in the next several years, and they have several projects in development with other aerospace manufacturers. Testing of those vehicles will be done in a new facility to be constructed in Midland, Texas, while production will be done on the Space Coast.

XCOR's Lynx 2-person suborbital spacecraft is slated to fly from several locations, including Mojave, California, the Caribbean island of Curaçao, and possibly Dubai or Abu Dhabi. The United Arab Emirates has looked at a spaceport that will host flights from both the Lynx and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two, XCOR's prime competitor at $200,000 per flight.

There's already competition in the suborbital space tourism market, and the flights haven't started yet.

Except the corporations are using technology originally developed by the government during WWII and the Cold War. Shockingly, it's almost as if we need government to push the boundaries and then let the corporations commercialize it ...

Very exciting developments Hopefully NASA can focus on deep space now and let the commercial sector battle it out in low Earth orbit.

Not to be a downer - but it may be time for attorneys to brush up on rights of way regarding space flight - hopefully it will only be property and not people that gets damaged by lack of cross communication of privately held exploration spacecraft.

There's a place called the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport? This is yet more evidence that the Southwest Regional Spaceport should never have been renamed "Spaceport America." Seriously, "Southwest Regional Spaceport" is a significantly cooler and more sci-fi name; I have no idea why they wanted to change it.

Not to be a downer - but it may be time for attorneys to brush up on rights of way regarding space flight - hopefully it will only be property and not people that gets damaged by lack of cross communication of privately held exploration spacecraft.

I would imagine you will need to file a flight plan (orbit plan?) with the FAA and/or NASA before you launch. Pretty sure you would get shot down fairly quick otherwise.

SpaceX completed its COTS (Commercial Orbital Transport Services) agreement this week with a certification from NASA, clearing the way for SPX-1, its first standard cargo flight to the International Space Station. (The earlier flight was a test loaded with non-critical supplies.) SpaceX Cargo Resupply Services flights, at $133M, will cost far less than deliveries launched by Russia, Japan, or the European Space Agency.

Why is SpaceX's service cheaper? What costs do governmental launchers have to bear that private launchers don't? Or are SpaceX's launches being subsidized?

Well that is a good question there grimlog and I can answer it while at the same time address the comment by niran131. There are many reasons but the major factors would be Space X designs and manufactures all major components in house thus avoiding costly delays and scheduling conflicts associated with out sourcing or contracting as with NASA or any Government type project. The same holds true with their competitors mentioned above as this method keeps costs low, quality high, and production timing streamlined. With the space program NASA often had limited options on this and juicy cost plus contracts with major defense contractors were often "suggested" by Congress and not always to NASA's benefit, but after Congress funds NASA and all the politicians have to get their "piece of the pie" so to say. Add to this bowl of expensive soup all kinds of red tape and unnecessary layered agencies and you can start to see how cost can escalate quite quickly. It is this competition among private industry that drives the cost down. If not for competition then very few merchants control and charge what the market will bear. In the end this hurts consumers and gives us fewer choices. It's all really a human nature thing when you look at the big picture.

As to these companies using technology developed by different governments over time, sure they are, and if you look at it NASA and the United States also built on this technology as did the USSR during the cold war. I was there (yea I am an old geek) and remember it all well. The space race was about national security more than anything else and still is. I applaud NASA and the private space industry it helped to develop because this will allow us a low cost option to develop low earth orbit thus saving what funding NASA can squeeze from Congress to explore the farther reaches of our solar system for future industry and colonization. National security benefits would be but not limited to maintaining our status as leaders in space exploration and development.

All in all I found this an interesting article and I am glad to see some media outlets such as this recognize the significant development in the private space industry. Just think about it, one of our next generations will be able to enjoy a lost cost family vacation to the Moon or visit relatives on Mars.

SpaceX completed its COTS (Commercial Orbital Transport Services) agreement this week with a certification from NASA, clearing the way for SPX-1, its first standard cargo flight to the International Space Station. (The earlier flight was a test loaded with non-critical supplies.) SpaceX Cargo Resupply Services flights, at $133M, will cost far less than deliveries launched by Russia, Japan, or the European Space Agency.

Why is SpaceX's service cheaper? What costs do governmental launchers have to bear that private launchers don't? Or are SpaceX's launches being subsidized?

The previous and competing launchers have to deal with older or poorer engineering and less advanced materials and designs that carry extra costs. SpaceX has gotten its price edge by starting with a clean-sheet design, and funding initial design and construction privately. This means that their manufacturing activities were not beholden to political pork-barrel whims, as some other players are.

Lockheed Martin likes to show up at aerospace conferences and brag that the Orion spacecraft they're contracting for NASA is being manufactured in 37 different states. To understand why they would brag about having such a complex supply chain, you first have to understand that their core competency is bidding on government contracts and lobbying Congress.

SpaceX builds their Dragon spacecraft and Falcon rockets in Hawthorne, CA. Their corporate headquarters, engineering, design, and mission control are under the same roof. This is a big part of why they are so cost-effective, and it's also how they managed to get so many Republican congresspeople to oppose the commercialization of spaceflight in favor of the pork-barrel Huntsville mafia and their Houston syndicate.

Except the corporations are using technology originally developed by the government during WWII and the Cold War. Shockingly, it's almost as if we need government to push the boundaries and then let the corporations commercialize it ....

Yep. Generally, good companies are great at innovating ways to make stuff profitable, which usually means making it less expensive and accessible to a wider audience (more customers = more profit). However, this model doesn't work well when the possibility of profit is so far out that financing it is too risky. Enter the government, which doesn't have the profit motive, but does have giant piles of money.

It doesn't always work out, but NASA has always been a great example of the benefits of the government and private sector working together to bring us new tech.

I love the fact that the tech has finally gotten to the point that the companies think they can make money at it. They'll probably beat NASA to Mars. (wishful thinking)

Lockheed Martin likes to show up at aerospace conferences and brag that the Orion spacecraft they're contracting for NASA is being manufactured in 37 different states. To understand why they would brag about having such a complex supply chain, you first have to understand that their core competency is bidding on government contracts and lobbying Congress.

SpaceX builds their Dragon spacecraft and Falcon rockets in Hawthorne, CA. Their corporate headquarters, engineering, design, and mission control are under the same roof. This is a big part of why they are so cost-effective, and it's also how they managed to get so many Republican congresspeople to oppose the commercialization of spaceflight in favor of the pork-barrel Huntsville mafia and their Houston syndicate.

Pork is very non-partisan - both sides are guilty of it. And if you'll look, you'll find that the senator whose district contains johnson space center (and all the supporting companies) in houston has been a democrat up until very recently.

Why is SpaceX's service cheaper? What costs do governmental launchers have to bear that private launchers don't? Or are SpaceX's launches being subsidized?

Two factors have been attributed and tested.

First, the change from the usual US politician military/space pork FAR contracts to SAA for development means going from cost plus (the customer makes changes as it sees fit, and pays for it) to usual order of service (the customer pays for a pre-defined service).

Second, SpaceX identified vertical integration as cheaper from Musk's experience with auto industry (Tesla). In effect, bringing back Henry Ford's principles. (Integrated production; a smidgen of "You can order any color, as long as it is black." - Dragon capsule for all LEO payloads (EDIT:) that is not under a fairing.)

While it's nice that several different new firms are working on new space hardware, I think that it's important to note that only SpaceX could continue if NASA pulled their funding. SpaceX already has launch contracts from outside vendors - they are scheduled to launch 12 flights in 2014 alone. Given a steady source of funding, and hopefully, a successful set of launches, SpaceX is poised to become the "Ford" of space, delivering cheap and reliable transportation off planet. That can't be a bad thing for all of us.

Several others have addressed the question of why SpaceX has lower prices for its launches; I would like to add some more info on that. The current Falcon 9 and the upcoming Falcon 9 v1.1 both use 10 Merlin rocket engines (9 on the first stage, and slightly modified MVAC version for the second stage) for every launch. This is an immense number of engines per launch, compared to the 3-4 used for most of their competitors. Both varieties of the Merlin engines can built on the same production line, using automated tooling. Automated engine production is perhaps the greatest cost savings SpaceX enjoys. Every one of their competitors uses hand-built engines, due to low numbers they require.

Here's one direct comparison: the Merlin MVAC Upper stage engine costs SpaceX approximately $2M to build, the same cost as the standard Merlins. One RL-10, a comparable upper stage engine used on Apollo and still used today on the Centaur upper stage is built by hand and costs $40M. The performance of the RL-10 is better, but only by about 33% per their Wikipedia entries.

2 more years and I'll have my astronautic engineering degree. Exciting time to be getting into the industry!

That's great bro. I have about 2 or 3 for my Mech E.Would you say there are similarities between aeronautics and mechanics? Read, heard the basic principles are nearly the same other than further application to "flight".

In a year's time Apple will introduce the iSpaceship which will be shiny, sleek, and beautiful and have an instrument panel that has been reduced to just one control — a simple multitouch button. Swipe up to lift off. Swipe down to land. Swipe left and right to skip to previous or next track on your current playlist. But all of this pales compared to the unboxing ceremony. Oh God! The Unboxing...

Anyone know which of these companies (or others involved in the nascent industry) are publicly traded? The only one I know of (aside from the biggies like LMT, which are far more invested in traditional defense) is Orbital Sciences. It seems a decent possibility that commercial space flight is the next global-paradigm-changing industry, such as computers/Internet were for the past few decades, airplanes were mid-century, transoceanic ships were in the 17th century, etc., etc., etc...

For those of us with educations in fields that aren't really applicable to space flight commercialization, now seems like a good opportunity for investment...

Except the corporations are using technology originally developed by the government during WWII and the Cold War. Shockingly, it's almost as if we need government to push the boundaries and then let the corporations commercialize it ...

Very exciting developments Hopefully NASA can focus on deep space now and let the commercial sector battle it out in low Earth orbit.

Now was that actually developed by the government or contractors under government funding?

Except the corporations are using technology originally developed by the government during WWII and the Cold War. Shockingly, it's almost as if we need government to push the boundaries and then let the corporations commercialize it ...

Very exciting developments Hopefully NASA can focus on deep space now and let the commercial sector battle it out in low Earth orbit.

Now was that actually developed by the government or contractors under government funding?

2 more years and I'll have my astronautic engineering degree. Exciting time to be getting into the industry!

That's great bro. I have about 2 or 3 for my Mech E.Would you say there are similarities between aeronautics and mechanics? Read, heard the basic principles are nearly the same other than further application to "flight".

Technically I'm Engineering Mechanics, we have a degree option that focuses on Astronautics, so that's what I say I'm doing. If I say 'Engineering Mechanics,' everyone assumes Mechanical, and then I sound like a knob trying to explain the difference in casual conversation.

The way I think of it is that in Mechanical, you learn how things work, and in Mechanics, you learn how things break. The real differences only come in the last few semesters of courses, up to this point we share curriculums pretty extensively. Undergrad degrees are pretty general anyway, so we'd probably be able to apply for the same jobs 95% of the time.

RE: Government/Private Industry -- Trying to argue that NASA's contractors fall under 'private sector' when building jobs on the government dime is a losing decision. It's pretty blatantly obvious that we never would've gone to the moon without federal dollars: There's no profit motive for private companies to go up there. That's not a good or a bad thing, that's just the way it is.

What I'm excited about isn't space tourism, it's the crazy Planetary Resources scheme. The minute we're able to retrieve a large amount of usable material (hopefully water) from a passing body, all bets are off on space exploration. In this case, there's no reason for federal dollars to fund the project: It's too risky, and NASA is just fine sending up the occasional deep-space probe. From where we're at today, it's up to private industry to move the boundaries forward. Again, that's just the way it is. And that's where I plan to be spending my career, with any luck.

Anyone know which of these companies (or others involved in the nascent industry) are publicly traded? The only one I know of (aside from the biggies like LMT, which are far more invested in traditional defense) is Orbital Sciences. It seems a decent possibility that commercial space flight is the next global-paradigm-changing industry, such as computers/Internet were for the past few decades, airplanes were mid-century, transoceanic ships were in the 17th century, etc., etc., etc...

For those of us with educations in fields that aren't really applicable to space flight commercialization, now seems like a good opportunity for investment...

Exactly what I was thinking. For GDP's to increase, new products or services have to get invented (and wanted). I see privatized space flight, exploration and mining being the next "boom". Seems every 10-20 years we have some new, exciting tech that comes out to cause a flux in the market. Everyone should cash in now before the bubble bursts in 2020.

SpaceX doesn't really have any competition until Orbital announces competitive pricing. Right now NASA is propping up Orbital by paying them more per kg to orbit than they pay SpaceX just to keep launch services from becoming a one-company market, but no private firm looking to buy launch services (like a satellite company) will do the same. SpaceX is quickly filling out its launch manifest years in advance, giving them the scale and the cash flow to lower prices further. Orbital will only be able to pick up the customers that don't want to wait for a Falcon to become available, which will keep them a boutique operator if they don't make any pricing breakthrough.

ISS is beginning to look like it will stay in orbit until at least 2028,

Excellent!

Quote:

and more space stations are on the way, so there may be a busy launch schedule at both ranges in the future.

Hopefully, the Chinese will have their big-ass station soon enough, and the Indians probably have something in the work. The more people there is up there doing science, the better.

BTW, am I the only one to think that the next addition to the ISS should be a giant assembly hall (using inflatable technologies) so they can assemble and check interplanetary probes before they leave Earth?

In this case, there's no reason for federal dollars to fund the project: It's too risky

What? Government is the one who steps in when things are too risky or expensive, but necessary. Private enterprise goes where profits can be had and the odds of failure are outweighed by dollar signs.

Well sure, but look at your qualifiers there: 'Necessary' is the applicable one. It's obviously never going to be 'necessary' for NASA to mine asteroids, any more than it would be necessary for NOAA to raise the Titanic.

Most of history's great explorations have been undertaken in support of commerce--we forget this fact in the age of NASA, since NASA is the notable exception. (It achieved its greatest feats in service of war; and with its more recent, purely scientific mission, has been drastically scaled back). I'm very happy that private companies are finally seeing opportunity for profit up there beyond the telecomm sector.